Eight a.m., and the usually comatose freshmen were focused on me! Could they be this interested in John Donne’s “The Flea”? Were they smiling at some joke of mine?

In the bathroom, after class, I saw it. A rooney as big as a ’56 Buick protruding from my left nostril.

—From a manuscript-in-progress, Four Bits, comprising very short stories

John L. Stanizzi

is the author of High Tide ~ Ebb Tide (Kelsay Books, 2017); three collections published by Antrim House: Ecstasy Among Ghosts (2007), Sleepwalking (2008), and Dance Against the Wall (2012); and two from Big Table Publishing Company: After the Bell (2013) and Hallelujah Time! (2015). His newest book, Chants, is forthcoming in 2018 by Cervena Barva Press. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, and many others. His poems have been translated into Italian and have appeared in El Ghibli, Journal of Italian Translation, Poetarum Silva, and Mosaici: Learned Online Journal of Italian Poetry.

A former New England Poet of the Year, John teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Connecticut and lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry. For more information about the author and his work, including excerpts, videos, and audios, visit www.johnlstanizzi.com.